Smoking Waters Mountain Man Rendezvous brings life to the history of West Yellowstone for visitors coming to see how the mountain men lived, worked and traded in the old days.
Step into the experience of 1800s life at the Smoking Waters Mountain Man Rendezvous. The encampment, complete with Trader's Row, fires the imagination of what it must have been like to live in that era. Entertainment, demonstrations and seminars on a variety of 'life as it was skills' will give a deeper appreciation of the challenges and dangers that were faced and overcome. Tomahawk and knife demonstrations, black powder shoots, Mountain-man storytelling, musicians and open fire cooking are all a part of this annual Smoking Waters Mountain Main Rendezvous.
Then it was on to Yellowstone. We only went about 40 miles into the Park with the first day objective...Old Faithfull!
Yellowstone National Park
It's a wonderland. Old Faithful and the majority of the world's geysers are preserved here. They are the main reason the park was established in 1872 as America's first national park—an idea that spread worldwide. A mountain wildland, home to grizzly bears, wolves, and herds of bison and elk, the park is the core of one of the last, nearly intact, natural ecosystems in the Earth’s temperate zone.
Old Faithful was named by the first official expedition to Yellowstone, the Washburn Expedition of 1870. They were impressed by its size and frequency. Old Faithful erupts every 35 to 120 minutes for 1 1/2 to 5 minutes. Its maximum height ranges from 90 to 184 feet.
Sorry if we took photos that look similar...but we did!
More updates coming as we will be here in the area until Wednesday morning.
UPDATE 8-5-14 with new photos.
Yesterday (Monday) we went back to Yellowstone for our final visit on this trip. Decided to take the 'lower loop' drive (click to see map) which started at Madison to Norris Junction to Canyon Village to Fishing Bridge then along Yellowstone Lake to West Thumb then past Old Faithful back to Madison then out the West Entrance where we came in. Gorgeous!!!
Gibbon Falls
The Falls is located on the Gibbon River about midway between Norris Geyser Basin and Madison Junction. The falls are situated where the Gibbon River falls off the Northern escarpment into the Yellowstone Caldera. The falls tumble about 80 feet in a gradual descent.
Yellowstone Lake
With a surface area of 132 square miles, Yellowstone Lake is the largest lake at high elevation (i.e., more than 7,000 ft.) in North America. It is a natural lake, situated at 7,733 ft. above sea level. It is roughly 20 miles long and 14 miles wide with 141 miles of shoreline. It is frozen nearly half the year. It freezes in late December or early January and thaws in late May or early June.
The fishes of Yellowstone National Park, in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming (U.S.), include 13 native fish species and six introduced or non-native species. Angling for trout has been a pastime in the park since its creation and trout species dominate the fish inhabiting the park. When Yellowstone National Park was created in 1872, 40% of the park's waters were barren of fish, including most alpine lakes and rivers above major waterfalls. Only 17 of 150 lakes held fish. Yellowstone Lake has an excellent population of native cutthroat trout. Strict fishing regulations have steadily improved the size and numbers of these feisty trout, although the recent discovery of lake trout in Yellowstone Lake is like to pose some long-term management problems. Currently, an angler is required to kill any lake trout that are caught - as these fish are predatory and do pose a major threat to the native cutthroat trout.
In 1889 the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries began a 60-year program of stocking and hatchery operations that significantly altered the ranges of native and non-native species within the park. By 1955, all stocking and hatchery operations in the park had been stopped. Several introduced species never established viable populations, and at least one introduced species was successfully eradicated from the park
Recent research by Dr. Val Klump of the Center for Great Lakes Research and the University of Wisconsin has revolutionized the way we look at Yellowstone Lake. Figuratively, if one could pour all the water out of Yellowstone Lake, what would be found on the bottom is similar to what is found on land in Yellowstone; geysers, hot springs, and deep canyons. With a small submersible robot, the researchers found a canyon just east of Stevenson Island which was 390 ft. deep. Prior to this finding, the deepest spot in the lake was thought to be 320 ft., at West Thumb.
Underwater geysers, hot springs, and fumaroles were found at West Thumb and Mary and Sedge Bays. The hottest spot in the lake was found at Mary Bay where the temperature was recorded at 252° F (122° C). Hollow pipes, or chimneys of silica, several feet in height, were found rising up from the lake bottom at Mary Bay. It is thought that these are the old plumbing systems of now dormant geysers. Rock spires up to 20-feet tall were found underwater near Bridge Bay. Samples of this rock are being analyzed, though it is believed that these features are probably related to underwater thermal activity.
This group of researchers also found that the conditions in Yellowstone Lake are similar to those that occur near the famous hydrothermal vents on the Pacific Ocean's mid-ocean ridge. Nutrient- and mineral-rich submarine fountains support incredible plant and animal communities, including bacterial mats, sponges, and earthworms.
Yellowstone Bison
Yellowstone is the only place in the United States where bison (Bison bison) have lived continuously since prehistoric times. Yellowstone bison are exceptional because they comprise the nation’s largest bison population on public land and are among the few bison herds that have not been hybridized through interbreeding with cattle. Unlike most other herds, this population has thousands of individuals that are allowed to roam relatively freely over the expansive landscape of Yellowstone National Park and some nearby areas of Montana. They also exhibit wild behavior like their ancient ancestors, congregating during the breeding season to compete for mates, as well as migration and exploration that result in the use of new habitat areas. These behaviors have enabled the successful restoration of a population that was on the brink of extinction just over a century ago.
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